


Beads

by WanderingRivers



Category: New Mutants
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-27
Updated: 2017-11-27
Packaged: 2019-02-07 09:22:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12838152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WanderingRivers/pseuds/WanderingRivers
Summary: As the end comes for Rahne, she reaches out for Dani one last time.





	Beads

She saw the fireball coming towards her and time slowed. Her slim fingers fumbled for the rosary in her pocket, a Hail Mary on her lips. Shifting to her wolfen form where she was neither wolf nor human but both, Rahne called out for Dani, seeking the warm comfort of her friend's mind. The burning flames slid towards her to consume her, to take her away, maybe to the Hell that Reverend Craig always spoke of but she was hoping for Heaven.

The tongues of fire plodded closer to her, reaching out to touch her but not quite reaching her. Shrinking away, she found comfort in the connection between her mind and Dani's. The familiar link became her anchor to the world of the living as death stalked her in the conflagration.

Danielle sat straight up on her cot; sweat dripping down her brow. "RAHNE!!!" Inside her mind she heard her friend's lilting Scottish brogue as the young woman spoke, her words spilling out one over the next. "Rahne. Wait. Slow down. I don't understand." Silence filled the link for a moment and Danielle could almost hear Rahne take a deep breath to slow her hurried speech.

"Dani. I'm so sorry. I couldn't. They've come to destroy us. The mansion is burning down around us. I'm so sorry." Rahne choked back a sob, not wanting to give in to her fear, her weakness. "I didn't want to be alone." Her mental voice trailed off with a small sniffle before spiralling into a scream. The fire had her now. Wrapping none too gentle fingers around her, it squeezed and consumed her, bite by bite, striping away skin from flesh and flesh from bone.

"No! Please! No!" Rahne and Danielle's voices became one as they endured the flames together. The Cheyenne writhed on her cot, scrabbling at the walls trying to escape the wrath of the flames torturing Rahne. Her voice went raw in a matter of seconds from her tortured screams, her cries now only a bare whisper as the flames danced before her mind's eye. Pain, terrible pain, slaked it's thirst for destruction on the bones of her body, cooking her like Sunday's dinner.

Major Hardcourt slammed down the button to gas the prisoner so that she might find some relief from the torments that wracked her. She knew that she wasn't supposed to empathize with the prisoners or think of them as anything more than animals but she didn't care. The poor girl was in pain and something had to get done. People weren't this cruel to animals, unless they were serial killers or something...right?

Danielle fought the effects of the gas. She needed to be awake. Rahne needed her. She needed... "No!" Dani gasped as she felt Rahne die with one last goodbye nestled in her heart.

The pain was gone. Bliss was hers as she stood over herself, watching her remains consumed by lazy tongues of flame. "Well done soul sister of Danielle Moonstar." Rahne looked over to see a Valkyrie in full battle array with her hand outstretched while her winged steed waited at her side. "I am Mist. Come with me. Valhalla awaits." It wasn't what Rahne was expecting but she couldn't complain. Rahne clasped her outstretched hand as light, bright and sharp, cut away the darkness and embraced her embattled soul, tormented no more.

Rahne's last words were on her lips as Danielle rocked back and forth on her bare cot, folded hands held up to her mouth to stifle the screams that threatened to overwhelm her. Tears welled in her eyes as one of her Valkyrie sisters in arms appeared before her. "It has been done, the werewolf princess has been escorted by Mist as you have asked Danielle Moonstar, rider of Brightwind, Saviour of Odin."

Dani nodded, a single tear slipping down her cheek. "Thank you." Autumn nodded, striking her spear against the cold steel floor as she faded from view.

She covered her mouth to muffle the sobs that wracked her as the lost of her best friend, her dearest friend, sunk in. She winced as her hand sent daggers of pain shooting along her frayed nerves. Dani looked down at her hand in wonder as scars in the shape of rosary beads wrapped around it, bright red against the faded leather tan of her skin. She bowed her head, honoring Rahne's falling as her lips moved in silent prayer. "Hail Mary, full of grace..."


End file.
